Following is a short and very helpful 4 lines by Thomas Keating, the godfather of a resurgence of Contemplative Prayer in North America. And a longer section from Jack Kornfield's A Path with Heart.
In this section JK quotes a wonderful poem by Windell Berry, I Go Among Trees and Sit Still. I've added a stanza that was left out.
I find all of this very helpful, but also deeply intuitive. I had to read WB's poem 5 times before I could even begin to absorb who was scared of what, etc.
Yet these re-readings were wonderfully rewarded--a growing understanding began to light up some of the typical stuff that troubles me, body and soul.
I wish the same light for you.
---
The mind
deceives.
The body
never lies.
Listen to
the wisdom of your body.
Hear its
truth. --Fr.Thomas Keating
---
Just as we open and heal the body by sensing its
rhythms and touching it with a deep and kind attention, so we can open and heal
other dimensions of our being. The heart and the feelings go through a similar
process of healing... Most often, opening the heart begins by opening to a
lifetime's accumulation of unacknowledged sorrow.
As we heal through meditation, our hearts break
open to feel fully. Powerful feelings, deep unspoken parts of ourselves arise,
and our task in meditation is first to let them move through us, then to
recognize them and allow them to speak. A poem by Windell Berry illustrates
this beautifully.
I go
among trees and sit still...
Then what
is afraid of me comes
and lives
a while in my sight.
What it
fears in me leaves me,
and the
fear of me leaves it.
It sings,
and I hear its song.
Then what
I am afraid of comes.
I live
for a while in its sight.
What I
fear in it leaves it,
and the
fear of it leaves me.
It sings,
and I hear its song.
After
days of labor,
mute in
my consternations,
I hear my
song at last,
and I
sing it. As we sing,
the day
turns, the trees move.
In truly listening to our most painful songs, we
can learn the divine art of forgiveness; both forgiveness and compassion arise
spontaneously with the opening of the heart. Somehow, in feeling our own pain
and sorrow, our own ocean of tears, we come to know that ours is a shared pain
and that the mystery and beauty and pain of life cannot be separated. This
universal pain, too, is part of our connection with one another, and in the
face of it we cannot withhold our love any longer. --Jack Kornfield, A Path With Heart
